


Firsts

by KyberChronicles



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: All The Tropes In One Fic, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, First Kiss, First Love, First Meetings, First Time, So many references to eyes and burning, So many tropes, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, but i can't help it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 20:11:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10793922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyberChronicles/pseuds/KyberChronicles
Summary: The first time he lays eyes on her, she is nothing special.The first time she lays eyes on him, she doesn’t like him.





	Firsts

The first time he lays eyes on her, she is nothing special.

 

She is an asset, a criminal, a temporary means to an end.  She is something he has to deal with for the time being, until he can get to her father.  She is just part of the process, one rung in the ladder, one cog in the wheel.

 

However, the first time he looks,  _ really  _ looks, at her, she is a vision.  She is movement and fury and power and grace; a warrior one minute, a savior the next.  She shines so bright he wants to cover his eyes.  

 

But he doesn’t, because after that, he can’t stop looking.

 

* * *

 

The first time she lays eyes on him, she doesn’t like him. 

 

He is shrouded in darkness and mystery.  He is a spy, a soldier, a prison guard, an interrogator. He digs up her painful past like a graverobber, stealing it from her lips for his ( _ their _ ) own benefit.  Yet he is also a step towards freedom, a way to disappear-- hopefully this time for good.   

 

But the first time she really  _ sees _ him, he is leaning in far too close, talking about hope.

 

She finds that she doesn’t mind it.

 

Then she keeps not minding it.

 

* * *

 

 

The first time they hold hands, they’re in a horrific parody of a romantic setting.  And they are dying.

 

It’s  _ her _ fingers that reach for him, on that once beautiful beach.  She hasn’t sought the comfort of another’s touch since she was a child, but it’s not the fear of death that makes her give in.  

 

It’s him.  The desire to know what little she could before they were lost to each other and the world.  The need to give comfort-- to find it, to share it--in the few minutes they have left.  

 

_ You are not alone, _ the gesture says.  She figures, like herself, he thought it’d be different. 

 

His hand is cold-- from shock, blood loss, pain, maybe all three-- but he curls his fingers around her all the same.

 

Very quickly, it’s not enough.

 

Very quickly, it is suddenly transformed into the first time they’ve ever held each other.  She’s on her knees, surging towards him, and he realizes that the last thing he’ll ever know is the feeling of her pulling him into her embrace.  He is stiff for a moment-- he’s in pain, and it’s been longer than he can actually remember since he’s been held by another-- but it’s just a moment, and then he’s sliding his hands up her back, fingers wide and trembling.  There’s a remaining part of his brain that tells him that this is weakness, he  _ shouldn’t _ \-- but he just wants to be free, here, at the end of the world.  And so he clutches at her, closing his eyes and losing himself in her arms.  The final thrums of his heartbeat speed up to synchronize with hers.

 

* * *

 

 

The first time  _ he  _ takes  _ her _ hand, he is just waking up from spending several days in a medically-induced coma.  

 

His hand is warm.

 

And they are alive.

 

* * *

 

 

Their first kiss comes with the Death Star exploding across the sky.

 

She’s leaning on a cane, he’s in a wheelchair, and they’re both staring up in wonder while a crowd of people whoops and hollers around them.  And because he knows the battle is far from over, because he knows that retaliation will be swift and deadly, he tries to hold on to the moment, appreciate it.

 

Rebellions are built on hope, after all.

 

That’s when he looks at her.  The tears on her cheeks have him standing before he even thinks about it.  His still-healing muscles and bones protest the movement, and then  _ she  _ is, as well, when she has to look up at him for the first time since Scarif.  But he ignores her, gently cradling her face in his hands and wiping her tears away with his thumbs.  Her eyes are startlingly green, framed by her wet eyelashes, and he feels the weight of the galaxy falling away around them.  The obedient soldier fades with it, along with the distant knowledge that they are surrounded by people that absolutely  _ should not _ be seeing this moment between them.

 

He leans down to her like he knows what he’s doing, like he’s done this before, like he’s not completely helpless to the pull of her, and when their lips meet he feels like they’re jumping into hyperspace together, away from it all.

 

The kiss is gentle, chaste, and tentative, a hesitant step into water by two people who have never learned to swim.  It lasts for mere seconds or perhaps a lifetime, and then he’s pulling away and opening eyes he didn’t realize he had closed.  Reality returns and there is still celebration around them, still bits of the Death Star igniting as they fall through the Yavin’s atmosphere.  

 

He caresses her cheekbones with his thumbs one last time before he straightens, his muscles starting to shake from effort.  

 

But the small, shy smile she gives him heals him more than bacta ever could.

 

* * *

 

The first time they fall asleep in each other’s arms comes almost a year later, on a transport ship.  The war has intruded on whatever it is between them, leaving only mere moments that flare with longing between the battles: eyes meeting across the hangar, brushes of skin that could be seen as accidental, words of comfort and wishes of safety whispered under the cover of running engines.

  
Their bodies have healed, but not all of their injuries are physical.

 

They are both sleeping off a mission gone horribly wrong: lost intel, lost supplies, lost lives.  You can’t win ‘em all, but you can’t lose ‘em all either, and the Rebellion has been on quite a streak.  Cassian is not looking forward to the disappointment in the eyes of his superiors, the small memorials that will pop up on certain doors in the barracks when there’s already far too many of those already.  

 

His sleep is fitful and light to begin with, but it leaves him completely when he begins to hear noises of distress from her bunk.  His hands twitch with the urge to wake her, to steal the nightmares from her mind like they stole the Deathstar plans from the Empire.  Another mission he’d give his life for.

 

But in these still early days, he doesn’t want to intrude, doesn’t want to overstep.  So he doesn’t move.

 

Until he hears his name, rasped into the quiet of the cabin as an agonized plea.  He is up and out of his bunk and pulling back the sliding door on hers before his brain can catch up with his heart.

 

“Jyn,” he murmurs.  “Jyn, wake up.”  His hands, so sure and steady while pulling triggers and playing executioner, tremble as they hover over her in uncertainty before gently resting on her arm.

 

She opens her eyes with violent flinch.  His name is gasped into her lungs.

 

“I”m here, I’m here,” he tells her, and it’s a promise made half in disbelief when she clutches at his hand.  

 

She is staring at him like he’s still just a dream and his heart can barely take it, because he’s always been a nightmare.  

Then she is pulling him into her too-small bunk, and he is sliding the partition closed behind him.  

 

They are all heartbeats and breaths, staring at each other in this new world they’ve found themselves in, where their bodies are only inches apart and their arms and hands are pressed awkwardly between them.  

 

But she is still staring at him like he might disappear if she even blinks, and he’s so tired.  He’s tired of fighting both the war and the pull between them, and something has to give.  So he slowly slides his arm under her pillow and turns to lay flat on his back.

 

His side is pressed tightly against her, and it’s somehow familiar.

 

She is still for a moment, watching his chest rise and fall.  Then her hand lifts and skates across the ribs that bruised and cracked for her, and reaches for the hand he lays across his stomach.  Her fingers lace between his and she shuffles closer, laying her hand on his chest.  His heartbeat thumps in her ears-- the sound is soothing.  

 

He is here.  He is alive.  He is with her.  

 

His arm curls her around as he shifts, his fingers tightening on her shoulder, holding her close.  

 

And she knows, then, that he will break her heart one day.  She will lose him, whether through war or time or illness or heartache, and it will cripple her. She wants to hate him for it, to claw her heart out of her body and toss it away, to run so fast from the things he makes her feel until they can’t keep up and fade away in the distance.  

 

But the nightmares of him falling, falling away from her until he’s a still body lying on a cold metal floor are far more terrifying than the fear of something yet to come.  She almost lost him once, and that knowledge makes his presence all the more precious.  

 

She listens again.  

 

_ Thump, thump. Thump, thump. _

 

It lulls her into the best sleep she’s ever had.

 

* * *

 

It’s not the first time he’s woken up next to her, but it  _ is _ the first time he’s woken up with her in his arms.

 

She is still asleep, her head on his chest, her breaths even and steady.  Their fingers are still laced together over his heart.  All he can do is stare down at her in wonder and let a realization run through him: he is no longer just a soldier, just a spy, just a rebel.

 

He is hers.  The fingertips pressed over his heart burned brands on it while they slept.

 

* * *

 

The first time desire starts to become a problem for her is a few months later on Hoth, when she wakes in his quarters to find their positions changed in their sleep.  She is on her side, and his body is curled tightly around her from behind.  Her shirt had ridden up in her sleep, and his hand is splayed on the bare skin of her ribcage.  

 

She should move him.  She knows she should move him.   But she doesn’t.  

 

She lets his touch burn into her like some kind of exquisite agony.

 

* * *

 

The first time desire starts to become a problem for _him_ is when she finally tears onto the ship and into his arms, sweaty and dirty and favoring her right leg.  Blood is seeping through her pants and she’s wincing in pain. He can feel her heart hammering in her chest.

  
He wants to yell at her for being so reckless, for leaving his side, for putting herself in danger, for scaring the  _ kriff _ out of him, but his anger flips to something else entirely when he looks down at her, feels her breathing heavily against him.  She always makes him burn, but this is different. Lower, deeper, crackling under his skin and making his head spin.  

 

So he latches onto the anger harder, biting out his words and glaring at her before disappearing into the cockpit.

 

Later, though, when he is kneeling at her feet with her pants lowered so that he can clean and dress the wound on her thigh, there is no anger left to save him from being burnt alive by the expanse of bare skin under his fingers.  

 

* * *

 

The first time they give into their desire, they’ve been apart for just about three months.  The Rebellion is struggling.  Alliance Intelligence has never been more necessary, and Cassian is thrown into mission after mission, with barely any time to breathe in between.  Jyn, meanwhile, hops from team to team, sent where she is needed most.  

 

She dreams of him.

 

But one day, within the few hours where the middle of the night and early morning meet, Jyn finally stumbles out of a ship and finds herself back on Echo Base.  She can barely think straight, she’s so tired-- the mission had taken much longer than expected due to a much larger presence of Imperial troops than expected.  Her body aches, her head is spinning, her muscles weak, and she can’t wait to sleep it all off.

 

But first.

 

She finds the closest terminal and searches the database for one name.

 

And when she finds it, she lets her fingers skim across the words as she sighs.  

 

_ Finally. _

 

With energy she didn’t think she possessed, she nearly runs to a familiar door in the barracks.  Her heart is pounding as she types in the code. 

 

The door slides open to a dark room, but she steps inside anyway, squinting into the darkness.  If he’s sleeping, she doesn’t want to wake him-- if she hasn’t already.  She hears the door close behind her and she’s waiting for her eyes to adjust when a tiny click breaks the silence.  The lights flicker on and her heart leaps.

 

He is there, in front of her, their bodies mere inches apart.  He must’ve been sleeping-- his eyes are tired and hooded, his far-longer-than-usual hair is mussed, and his sleep pants are slung low on his hips.  

 

His chest is bare.

 

“Jyn,” he breathes, and she’s not even thinking, just reaching up and pulling him down so that she can press her lips to his.  Then her hands are on his stubbled cheeks, in his hair, on his neck, his shoulders, his arms.  

 

To give him credit, even though he’s just woken up, he responds almost immediately.  He’s pulling her into him and cradling the back of her head, his lips moving over hers insistently.  And then he’s pulling back and kissing her again, over and over, until their mouths part and their tongues meet and they’re drowning in each other.

 

But neither can get enough.

 

Without realizing it, she is pushing him back towards the bed while she greedily runs her hands over the skin that is so rarely revealed to her.  He’s pushed off her coat, and one of his hands has snuck under her shirt to splay across the skin of her back.

 

_ Yesyesyesyesyesyes _ is all she hears in her mind.

 

And then she’s on her back on his bed and the hand that isn’t still cradling her head is inching up her torso.  One of his legs is pressed between hers and he’s half on top of her, but the weight feels wonderful and overwhelming and solid.

 

The tips of his fingers reach the skin just under her breasts and she gasps at the sensation.

 

And then there’s an alarm coming from a datapad on his desk.

 

They both freeze for a moment, eyes opening and connecting.  Reality descends.

 

Cassian is climbing off of her and grabbing the datapad, tapping on it a few times to silence the alarm.  He looks up at her then.

 

Both of them can’t breathe for a moment at how perfectly wrecked the other looks: swollen lips, mussed hair, pupils dilated, chests heaving.  

 

Cassian clears his throat. 

 

“I’m due to leave in an hour,” he rasps.  

 

And part of Jyn thinks that a lot can happen in an hour.

 

The other part of her thanks the force for being given a reason to stop.  It was a terrible idea.

 

The part that she doesn’t want to acknowledge reminds her that he’s already so deeply embedded in her heart that adding a physical aspect to their relationship wouldn’t make much difference in how much it would hurt to lose him.  

 

“Oh,” is what she says.

 

When she watches his ship disappear into the snowy haze of Hoth’s atmosphere, she touches her lips and remembers.

 

* * *

 

The first time they talk about their feelings, the Alliance has suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of the Empire.  Echo Base has been breached, half-destroyed, and overtaken.  It was was devastating loss of life, supplies, weaponry, and morale.

 

But the survivors limp to “Haven”, a set of coordinates beyond the outer rim and a temporary rendezvous point.  

 

Cassian had missed the battle.  He had been returning from a mission when he received the message that the base was under attack.  He had immediately changed course to Haven and met up with the Rebel fleet.

 

The information he receives from the incoming rebels is terrifying.

 

Jyn was with the ground forces, he learns, but no one seems to know what happened to her once the base was breached.  Her status is unknown.

 

And so he waits.

 

And waits.

 

Four days after the battle, when he’s about to tear his hair out and fly back to Hoth to find her himself, a young private interrupts a briefing aboard the  _ Home One _ .

 

Leia’s eyes meet Cassian’s over the table.

 

He turns and leaves without asking to be dismissed.

 

Then he’s running, sprinting down the hallway to the small hangar.

 

And there she is-- hobbling through the hangar.  Her eye is blackened and there’s a healing cut high on her forehead.  

 

And then she’s looking up at him, and he watches her whole body sag with relief.

 

He’s in front of her in just a few steps and even though there’s people around, people watching, he can’t keep his hands off of her and he gently--so gently-- cradles her head in his hands.  She sighs and leans into his touch.

 

“Do you need to go the medbay?” he asks, his first spoken words to her in months.

 

“No,” she croaks, “Well, maybe eventually. But not yet.I think I just have a sprain.”

 

He nods slowly, letting go of her only to loop his arm around her waist.  She grasps his shoulder and they slowly make their way to his temporary quarters on the ship.  

 

Emotion is bubbling in his chest as he relishes her closeness.  He knows then, that he can’t do it anymore-- whatever it is between them, it is too rooted in him, too solid to ignore.  He can’t dance around it, or use the war as an excuse to avoid it.  The war, if it has its way, will take her from him before they get their chance.  But impossibly, they are still surviving.

 

That doesn’t mean that they will keep doing so.  

 

The swirling thoughts of the past four days beat against the inside of his skull.  All the things he regretted not saying or doing if she was lost to him.  All the time he wasted hiding his feelings instead of exploring them with her.  

 

It feels as if they’re living on borrowed time now, time that was taken from others who never returned from Scarif like they did.  How much longer until that time runs out?

 

They get to his room and he opens the door, walking her over to bed and helping her sit down on it.  The door whooshes shut behind them, and then all is silent and still.  

 

He feels the pull of desire again, like the last time that they were alone, together.  He  _ wants _ her, he knows that, but he doesn’t want what so many fall into in times of war.  He’s not interested in merely a way to blow off steam, a physical comfort, a way to stave off the fear and sadness. 

 

She is so much more than that.

 

Jyn’s eyes are on him as Cassian slowly kneels down at her feet and begins untying her boots.  He pulls off the one on her uninjured foot, then looks up at her.

 

“Ready?” he asks, softly. 

 

She nods. 

 

He pulls the sides open as wide as he can, then grips her calf, gently.  Slowly and carefully, he pulls the boot off, but she still hisses between her teeth.  Her ankle is obviously swollen, and Cassian frowns.

 

“What happened?” he asks, lowering her foot to the ground.  

 

“Ice and running and fighting don’t mix,” she responds flatly, pulling the covers down on the bed and carefully lifting her feet up underneath them.  She snuggles down into his bed, her head on his pillow.

 

He’s going to smell her on his sheets for weeks.

 

“Do you want me to leave so you can sl--” he begins to ask, bringing an arm up to brace himself on the mattress to stand, but her arm shoots out of the covers and grabs his wrist.

 

“No,” she says.  “Stay. Please?”

 

Their eyes connect.

 

“I thought I was never going to see you again,” she whispers, and there’s so much fear and want  in her eyes.

 

“Me too,” he tells her.  She releases his wrist to bring unsteady fingers to his face.  She traces his cheekbones, the circles under his eyes, his lips.  And then he takes her by the  wrist and presses kisses to the pads of her fingers.

 

“I don’t want to be away from you anymore,” she tells him, her voice shaking.

 

He gazes at her, lets her words settle into his chest. 

 

“What are you saying, Jyn?” he asks.

 

“I don’t know,” she admits.  “I don’t even know if it’s possible.  But I felt so alone on Hoth, Cassian.  There were other soldiers, but I didn’t know their names, they didn’t know mine.  And I just thought… I don’t want to go weeks or months or days anymore not knowing if you’re okay or… or even alive.  I want to stay.  With you.”

 

She’s always so much  _ braver _ than he is.  Forging ahead, carving her own path, like always.

 

Because he’s afraid.  He’s afraid to love her like he knows he already does, knowing that he could lose her, that even apart from the threat of war, it could just not work.  He doesn’t know what he’s doing, and they’re both more broken than the tough show they put on to get through their days.

 

What chance do they have?

 

But as he’s pressing his lips to her bruised and bloody knuckles, he thinks,  _ What choice? _

 

“Okay,” he tells her, simply, as if the sun wasn’t rising with it all.  “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

The first time they make love, everything is falling apart.

 

They had sat in silence, staring at a nightmare that they thought had ended years ago.  

 

The Death Star.

 

But there wasn’t time to react; they were too close, and Cassian leapt into hyperspace before the Empire could notice them.

 

And now, Jyn sits in the cockpit, silent and unmoving.  He had landed them at the hidden outpost on Tierfon, so that he could debrief their findings securely to High Command.  He was inside, now, doing just that.

 

She hasn’t left the ship. Or the hangar.  She is numb.

 

Later, he comes back to her.  Like he always does.

 

Him, alone.

 

“Jyn,” he calls out to her.

 

She doesn’t answer.

 

He is in front of her, blocking her stare into nothingness.

 

“Jyn, you’ve been out here for hours.  Let’s get you inside,” he tells her.  There is a twinge of a plea in his voice.

 

He is worried.

 

_ About me or the Death Star? _ she wonders, vaguely.

 

“Come on.  Listen to me,” he tells her, his voice gruffer than usual.

 

“I can’t,” she croaks.

 

“Yes, you can,” he immediately replies. “Come on.” 

 

He’s had to do this before: pull her out of her mind, out of her sorrow, out of her grief.  But he doesn’t have the sound of blasterfire or wave of imploding earth to help snap her out of it, here.  There is just him.  

 

And he is unnerved by the return of the Death Star.  He is  _ afraid _ .  He feels his hope fading and curdling into despair, deep within his chest. Scarif flickers into his memory, hot and bright and painful.  He has no calculation ready, nothing to stop his war-tired mind from spiraling downwards with her.

 

So he acts, instead.

 

He says her name and presses his lips to her forehead.  He says it again and kisses her temple.  Her name again, and he kisses the side of her neck, hearing her breath hitch.  He lets that one linger.

 

Her fingers are grasping his shirt.

 

“Cassian,” she gasps.

 

He pauses for a moment, and then kisses her, hard.  She responds in kind, pulling him closer to her, breathing heavily through her nose.  Her hands move up to his collar, and he’s bracing himself on the arms of the chair to keep himself from falling into her lap.  

 

He pulls away suddenly and slaps at a button on the console.  The cargo door begins to close, and he lowers the shades on the viewport.  His eyes are dark and blazing.  Jyn stares up at him.

 

He offers her his hand.

 

“Come on.” 

 

His voice sends a ripple of heat through her, and she takes his hand, getting up from the chair.  

 

This time, when desire overwhelms them and carries them away from the war and the galaxy itself, far beyond the reach of the Death Star…

 

They let it.

 

* * *

 

The first time they let themselves hope for the future is the first time they let themselves fall apart in each other’s arms.

 

The explosion of the second Death Star lights up the sky of Endor, and cheers erupt throughout the forest.

 

Jyn and Cassian look up at it through the trees as they support each other.  Both of them are injured.  Jyn took a blaster shot to the shoulder, while Cassian took one to the thigh.  They’re both battered, bruised, and filthy.

 

They turn to each other.

 

There are tears cascading down Jyn’s cheeks, against her will. Cassian goes to wipe them away, leaving a trail of mud streaked across her cheekbone.  

 

His watery huff of laughter is music to her ears.

 

She gazes at him like she always has, like he’s a dream of hers come to life, and he realizes that there are rivers of tears on his face, too.  Still, they’re both smiling through their sniffles. 

 

“It’s not over,” he tells her.  “Not yet.”

 

He picks a leaf out of her hair.  

 

“No,” she agrees. “But we can hope.”

 

“Hope?” he questions incredulously, a glint in his eye.  

 

She gently pulls him down to her.

 

“Yeah,” she reminds him.  “Rebellions are  _ built _ on hope.”

  
And so, as it turns out, are love stories.

**Author's Note:**

> This one turned into a BEAST on me. 
> 
> I'm... not sure if I like it? But it's one of those things where you get to a certain point and you just have to finish.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
